2026-10-09 APP 2.0.0-beta48 has been released !
This is mainly a bug fix release for the reported bugs in beta47. In addition it has a significant User Interface performance improvement noticable when you need to process 1000s of images in APP.
2026-10-03 APP 2.0.0-beta47 has been released !
This is a very big release... many code optimizations/rewrites, many parts of APP are much faster and more precise, especially star analysis and registration are much faster ! Big mosaics will go much faster 🙂
And we introduce a new preview filter, which includes the new Adaptive Deep Sky Stretch and a General Levels Stretch, this has been long over due. The old preview filter (the panel on the right side to stretch and preview your data) has not been updated for a couple of years and it is a critical part of any APP session.
Adaptive Deep Sky Stretch or ADSS is a much more intuitive stretch algorithm. It is also color preserving (which is a great new addition in itself ! ) which means that the highlights are no longer bleached, color is maintained from the linear data while stretching. You can simply stretch your data using the sky background level and signal width sliders which work much easier and more intuitive. You no longer need to fiddle with the old complicated sliders with zoom buttons. All the zoom buttons for the sliders are made redundant. And you can enter slider values in the slider value fields yourself. I will make a youtube video in the coming days to explain and fully introduce ADSS. Once the video is ready, it will be highlighted on the forum.
RGB Combine upgrade !. The RGB Combine Tool has been rewritten mostly. The tool is faster and easier to use and most importantly, the Luminance slider to inject a luminance channel or channels into the RGB composite is now working correctly. It no longer bleaches the RGB colors. Combined with the new ADSS preview, you will get much better and easier great composites with great color! I will also explain this in a new youtube video.
on the left I have integrated 36 panels only loading hydrogen into APP. On the right, I have loaded my Ha and Oiii frames and gotten a bad result. My oxygen mosaic also looks bad. Settings remained constant in each case, the only change was loading my oxygen files, which somehow messed up my hydrogen image. I think APP is not choosing an integration reference per filter, messing up the result. I am using the new beta version. If I can't process all filters at once then how will I be able to register each narrowband channel to each other?Â
@astrofalls Hi!
on the left I have integrated 36 panels only loading hydrogen into APP. On the right, I have loaded my Ha and Oiii frames and gotten a bad result. My oxygen mosaic also looks bad.
Did you try loading the OIII frames and integrate those into a mosaic without loading the Ha frames? Does that improve the OIII mosaic or do you still see that round glow just right of the center? If this solves the issue then we may want to have a look at your data to see what may be causing this. If the latter then you may want to check your OIII data to see what causes that round glow. To me it suggests an issue with your flats but I could be wrong.
If I can't process all filters at once then how will I be able to register each narrowband channel to each other?Â
You can process the Ha frames into an Ha mosaic. Then process the OIII frames into an OIII mosaic without loading any Ha frames. Then you can load both mosaics as Light and assign them to their corresponding filters. Don't load any calibration frames. Then go to tab 4 and register the mosaics. This will take APP through the first 4 steps and calibration (step 2) will leave the mosaics untouched since you didn't load any calibration frames. Once done, save the registered frames and use them for further processing.
It is recommendable to process all the way up to normalization instead of registration so the frames are normalized as well. That may save hassle during post-processing. In that case, save the normalized frames instead of the registered frames. Or save both (once normalization is finished you can go to tab 4 and save the registered frames as well) to see which works best for your data.
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HTH, Wouter
Integrating the o3 mosaic on its own also improves the result. I pre integrate all panels with the WBPP script in Pixinsight since it is faster, then I stitch in APP, so every panel looks good I don't think its a flat fielding problem.
I will try registering the big mosaics together!Â
